yuppie crack

Gonna be a beautiful day today at the markets. I stood outside early this morning looking for these alleged falling stars, didn't see any. Inside tip, if you are near Broadway and Diversey on Sunday the 16th, the Pastoral cheese shop, 2945 N. Broadway, is celebrating their fifth anniversary. They will be giving away free baguettes with a purchase.

Today Chris made some "Bostock". Very traditional French item. They use day old brioche loaves and slice it pretty thick. Here we used a pullman style loaf, so it yields a square slice. he cut them every bit of an inch thick. He dipped them in simple made with orange juice. He then spread on a pretty thick layer of almond creme. He tossed together sliced blanched almonds, sugar and a little kosher salt. He ran them around the oven a few times to dry them out. He covered the top of the almond creme with these almonds and we will bake them this afternoon. This is an item that I've always wanted to make. My buddy and teammate William Leaman, who has Bakery Nouveau in West Seattle, calls bostock, "Yuppie crack". He says people get to his bakery early morning almost "Strung out. Gotta score some bostock".

Chris has a lot of good restaurant/fine dining/pastry experience. Hell, he works for Thomas Keller out at the French Laundry in Napa. Bouchon is a branch of the French Laundry. Today he also made fresh fruit croissants out of plain croissants. He splits them in half, lays them open face and spreads them with almond creme. Covers the almond creme with fresh fruit. today we did blueberries and rasp raspberries. He then almost "Packs" them with streussel. They end up pretty heavy. Once they are baked they get dusted with powdered sugar. I'm looking forward to seeing them baked.

well gotta get busy. I just found out that tonight is the "Andersonville dinner crawl". It should bring a lot of extra folks to the market tonight. Lots of yuppies.